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Wednesday afternoon, Arnie, Michael and I saw a talk by Will Wright in the Regent Street Apple Store. Will is the creator of what EA is publicising as “the most anticipated game of 2008” (perhaps a stretch, but it’s definitely a line for the ads to use), Spore. He spoke about the creation of the game, its reception so far and gave a quick demo.

I would quote what he said, but I didn’t have my journalist hat on at the time (read: couldn’t be arsed to take notes), so I’ll have to paraphrase. His development group took cues from (and this is a quote) “Facebook and Myspace” when designing the community and social interaction features of the game. In other words, God help us all. Disclaimer: God may or may not exist, depending on your preference du jour.

Judging by the figures he gave, Spore Creature Creator really has taken off. I’m remembering numbers like there being 1.5 million species on Earth, and so far Spore users have created 3.8 million. There’s a great graph he used that you can see on Flickr, which kind of shows the boom. Apparently what God managed in seven days, Spore users did in eighteen. And therefore they are 38% God.

Spore is out this coming Friday (the 5th September) and I’m going to be doing my best to be getting my hands on a copy. As is my brother, but only after seeing what the Spore Penis Monster can do.